by E E Everly
“I don’t doubt it,” he said.
I could feel Cystenian’s eyes on me as I took everything in. Insects buzzed from flower to flower. They resembled bees, but they had six shimmering green wings instead of four, yet I could see the pollen on their legs. I bent to get a closer look. One of them flew right past my nose. I straightened. “On Earth, emrys means immortal. It’s the name of a fictitious wizard who lives forever. He has magical powers and controls the elements.”
Cystenian slipped closer to me and seemed to be studying me as much as I was studying everything else. “That doesn’t seem far off. Not the name wizard, mind you, but we control the power of light and wield the elements. New powers have emerged in the past, but your interesting wings and my dragon wings are new.”
“They were hawk wings. I’ve been watching a nest all summer. I’d know them anywhere, even if they were made from fire.”
“By the Master, this is remarkable! I bet that’s why they manifested as hawk wings, then. It was something you were familiar with. While I’ve grown up wishing and hoping that a dragon will choose me as his guardian.”
“Guardian?”
Cystenian shrugged. “No such luck. Usually dragons pick their guardian when an emrys is born. It’s a connection the dragon senses upon the emrys’s birth. Since that didn’t happen with me, my only hope would be for a newborn dragon to find me instead.”
“This is way over my head.” I waved my hand above me.
“Way over your head?”
“I don’t understand what’s going on. Can we focus on getting me home? I doubt I’ll sprout wings again.”
“Must you go? We have to try to fly—”
“I am not jumping off a cliff again.”
Cystenian stopped and grinned. He must have been picturing me stepping off the cliff. He hadn’t had to do a life-risking jump. “Did you truly jump?”
I nodded.
“That’s interesting. Before or after your wings manifested?”
“Before.”
“The fae just assumed you wouldn’t die,” he said.
“Come again?”
“They forced us from our homes. Me through the portal and you off the cliff. They wanted us to meet.”
“If I ever meet a fae…” I squeezed a handful of wildflowers, crushing their blossoms, without first asking Cystenian if flowers in his world were deadly upon touch.
“Hey, it’s all right.” Cystenian loosened my fist and brushed the poor petals and pollen off my hand. “We escaped them. I shudder to think what would have happened if we hadn’t.”
“Yeah, about that. What would have happened?” I was staring up at Cystenian. I couldn’t help it, not when he was so close and definitely not shy about initiating touch. He had a faint shadow of blond hair on his upper lip, and a blond curl grazed his eyelashes.
“Nothing that is proper to speak about, but I think you have an idea because of the way we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves.”
What? Like a make-out session? Did fae find delight in making two unsuspecting souls kiss?
Cystenian rocked on his feet. “Will you come home with me? I’m curious about your origins. And this flying thing is new. We might have evolved into this since the emrys are an ancient race. Or it could have been a side effect from the fae spell.” Cystenian turned around in the flowers, stirring up a bunch of bees that then danced around his head. A fitting halo of sorts. “Wait until Bronwen learns this. She will be ecstatic.”
“Who’s Bronwen?”
He paused and looked right at me. Intensely, I might have added. “My sister—older sister.”
Cystenian’s bouncing and bubbly personality reminded me of excited baseball players after they’d won a game. They jumped around and whooped and smashed their chests against each other. I clearly had a thing for baseball players. Cystenian had the same build. Tall, lean, and sculpted. Toned arms and nimble legs. He looked as if he could dance around a baseball diamond and crack the ball out of the park.
It was easy to see his thrill of realizing a new power—was that the right word?
A power?
Was I a superhero? Some superheroes could fly. Some because they were aliens.
I took a full breath and staggered on my feet.
Superhero? Alien?
I had flown. That was real, I think. At least I was coming to accept that it was real.
Cystenian touched my bicep, steadying me, and helped me to the ground, which was good, because I suddenly felt shaky, as if I’d huffed and puffed on a never-ending uphill climb.
I put my head between my knees. Why was everything, and I meant everything, finally hitting me? I’d jumped off a cliff. I’d sprouted wings. I’d flown in the arms of an emrys.
I’d kissed him!
I took deep breaths. After the excitement I’d been through, it was becoming reality, and I was accepting it.
Cystenian brushed my hair aside and swept his hand against the back of my neck. Calm washed over me. It originated in his touch and rose up my neck into my head. Had I imagined that? How could calm originate from him? He had said something about touching foreheads and exchanging emotions earlier.
I relaxed into the pressure of his hand as the feeling continued to slide down my body. He was way too close. The heat from his body warmed my back. He must have knelt behind me.
A groan rolled around in my head. Cystenian…
I never wanted to stop touching him. My hand reached back and covered his. What emotion was he getting from me? Could he tell how relaxed and how blissed out and how euphoric I felt?
I wanted to fling myself into his arms.
No, I wanted to be flying.
I couldn’t make up my mind.
I should stick with my original plan and fly to the ocean.
I loved the ocean.
I mumbled, with my head against my knees. “We should try that again—flying.”
Cystenian snorted, with a chuckle. What was he amused by? He was getting a read on my feelings again, wasn’t he? My embarrassing feelings. I needed to grill him later about how this magical stuff worked.
I assumed this was magic. How else could I explain any of it?
Cystenian leaned over my shoulder and nudged my ear with his nose and spoke softly, almost sensually. “We should at least be going. We’ve lingered too long.”
A chill raced up my spine. “Why do you say that?” I whispered. I didn’t want to raise my voice and break this feel—this spell I was under.
“I feel… odd.” He spoke so quietly. His fingertips laced through my hair at the base of my skull.
A little gasp parted my lips.
I leaned to the side, away from his grasp, and his hands fell away. Something in my head told me I should, but something in my head also begged another reason for leaning away. I reclined all the way into the grass and wildflowers, beside Cystenian.
To my amazement, he lowered himself over me, with a hand planted on either side of me and his legs kneeling over and straddling my thigh.
His body was only inches above mine.
We were only inches apart from each other.
My heart raced. Something would happen. Something between us, and I’d be powerless to stop it. I knew this without worry, without sorrow.
How could I be so accepting?
“Anerah”—Cystenian grunted, his face wrinkled with fight—“push me away. Push me with your light.”
My hands snaked up and held his face, caressed his cheeks. “What do you mean? How can I push you away?”
“Oh, Master”—he dropped onto one elbow, which settled our bodies against each other, at least on one side—“the magic is crushing my resolve.” He groaned and tucked his face into the crook of my neck.
His breath was warm against my clavicle. In my head, I tried to grasp what he’d said. “Magic?” I barely mouthed.
“Yes.” He quivered. “They found us.”
FOUR
They? Yes. They’d found us.
The fae. I understood now, even as my surroundings became so hazy that they and I and Cystenian melted into each other.
We would be one. It didn’t matter where one ended and one began, not as long as Cystenian was with me and I was with him and the meadow was lovely and the bees buzzed around us and the sun melted us into the earth. This must happen. There was no point in fighting. We hadn’t really beaten the fae.
They just allowed us to believe we’d escaped their magic.
I didn’t push Cystenian away. I couldn’t have. Besides, I wanted him close—wanted him to touch me.
I knew he would kiss me before his lips met mine, tenderly and hesitantly, as if he was fighting within himself.
I was eager.
I grabbed his locks of hair and raked my fingers through them as I crushed his mouth down on mine. Restraint slipped away.
I felt the magic now. Fae magic. Had they come through the portal? The spell was heavy, more so than before, and it enhanced the dreamlike atmosphere. No wonder I had been confused by the stream on Earth.
Cystenian gasped, pulling away as he released me from a kiss. “You’re not helping.” He growled, low. Light flared inside his body. Light that I could see somehow. The heat from it pushed against me, and I understood what he was attempting to do.
He was trying to force away the magic.
Whereas I had given in.
Cystenian crawled to his knees, separating us, but instead of moving away, as I thought he would, he whipped his shirt off over his head and threw it into the flowers.
Whoa. That was unexpected.
I was breathless, trying to grasp what was happening, but I was distracted by how glorious and how radiant Cystenian looked in the morning light. Its rays shone on his chest, masking his inner glow. It seemed Cystenian was haloed with light, whether from within or from the sun I didn’t know.
Which, I realized, wasn’t even my sun because we were on another planet.
My hands snaked up his chest. His skin was smooth, soft, and warm, like stroking my fingers through a bowl of melted chocolate.
To my shock, his face screwed up. A single tear worked its way down his face and hit his lips.
Oh no, he’s miserable. He doesn’t want this.
“This is not your fault,” I said. I wasn’t sure how the fae had found me or picked me back on Earth. I didn’t know how they’d picked Cystenian. But this, us, was going to happen.
What kind of sick beings are these fae?
Cystenian didn’t wipe the tear away. His hands were busy elsewhere. They found my shirt and fiddled with the fabric. Rough hands, like those of a man, not a boy, traced circles on my stomach.
I did not fight him. The magic told me not to, and in a way, I didn’t want to either.
This was so wrong.
But it felt so right.
His hand rested over my belly button. “You’re not going to stop me, are you?”
I chewed my lip as I winced at him.
He wagged his head side to side. “Curses, Anerah, why can’t you fight it? Don’t let me do this to you.” More tears fell, splashing my face. He kissed them, and me, my cheeks, my lips.
I tasted salt.
He broke away and took a deep breath. “Argh!” He clenched his fist and punched the earth beside my head. “I can’t stop this!”
I started to cry.
“Oh. No, Anerah.” He reared back on his heels beside me and took my face in his hands. “I’m not angry with you.”
My lips quivered. This was the most dreadful and most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced, being with Cystenian, being in his arms, but Cystenian fought against it—as if I carried the plague.
What was the use? If the fae were going to enslave us, I wanted to accept my chains with open arms, not misery.
“You’re making it awful.” I touched his face and then dropped my hand to his chest, where my palm flattened against it. “Don’t fight. Just let it happen. It’s okay.”
I attempted to tell him with my expression, with the lightness of my voice, but he wasn’t buying it. He wasn’t glowing anymore either.
Neither was I.
Cystenian’s inner torment made this magical seduction horrid.
“Anerah. I’m not a scoundrel. Tell me you don’t want this. At least say it if you can’t stop it. Say it!”
I pressed my lips together and shook my head. I couldn’t say it. Why couldn’t I say it? Deep in my heart, I thought I deserved this. Anerah, the lost girl in the wood, stumbled into some fae glen and fell under a stupid deserving spell. Foolish girl.
“You don’t deserve this. Whatever you’re thinking isn’t true. They’re deceiving you.” He managed to let go of me and break contact. Sweat ran down his temples. “You’re making this difficult, not me. Fight their compulsion.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
Giggles echoed around the meadow. Quietly. Tauntingly. Hardly perceptible. Just enough so that we knew their presence. I rolled upright and glanced around.
I saw nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Giggles again, coming from all around us.
The wretched creatures were invisible and watching us.
I tore up a palmful of grass and threw it at the closest giggle, screaming my anguish at the same time.
“They laugh at our torment.” Cystenian grabbed me and pulled me around until we were standing on our knees and facing each other.
I took both his hands in mine. I trembled so badly I could hardly bring his hands to my face.
One moment of control. We would have this, and then we’d crumble. I would have enough strength to show him this because Cystenian wanted it to be okay.
I brought his forehead to mine, and we held each other, pushing together, desperately holding on, as we breathed forcefully. Cystenian shook with restraint.
“I didn’t want it like this.” He had forced his eyes shut.
“Look at me, Cystenian.”
He opened his incredible green eyes.
“I will not hate you for this. Do you understand?” My skin danced with anticipation. My fingers, my arms, every limb, every fiber of my being wanted him. It was the magic making me feel this way. And I would allow it to overcome me. “I will hate them”—inwardly, I indicated the fae—“not you.”
Something coursed up inside me. It bubbled to the edges of my being and coated my skin. Then it burst from me in a current that rippled over the meadow. Flower heads nodded in its wake. Whatever it was, this strange power, this energy, disappeared like mist meeting the sun.
A coldness jabbed my back, like an icy finger stabbing me.
I gasped.
Cystenian gripped my hands and kept me from collapsing. “You’re strong, Anerah. You’re brave. That was a valiant attempt.”
“I don’t know what I even did.” I pulled myself against his chest. I was so weak that I clung to him so that my body wouldn’t give out.
“That was your power. Your light. No matter what happens, embrace who you are, who you learned you are today.”
“An emrys.”
“Yes.”
He kissed me then. Deeply and tenderly. Our mouths parted, and we tasted each other.
Sweetly.
Innocently.
I believed that kiss was real. For several blissful seconds we had control.
“Please just tell me that you don’t want this,” he whispered, “so I know it will be all right.”
“Okay.” I gulped. “I don’t want this.”
I was lying.
“That’s what I needed,” he said.
Then Cystenian collapsed inside. I saw it, or felt it, or something. An inner strength that he’d been fighting with dissolved into oblivion. He had fought for as long as he could.
My heart broke for him.
His tears splashed my face as he kissed me.
All power of speech escaped us. I couldn’t even moan. I tried to push my feelings into him, tried to let him know I liked ou
r union with what little ability I understood about who I was.
I wanted him to feel some joy.
But he wouldn’t have it.
This isn’t his fault. This isn’t my fault. My heart ached, even as I accepted the violating act against us.
Let this be over. Please let this be over.
It would have been beautiful had Cystenian’s tear-streaked face not been forever emblazoned in my mind. Our intimacy was too powerful and pure in some way. I don’t know how I could say that, but we were innocent.
And Cystenian was beautiful in a sorrowful way as he cried down upon me.
This experience was more than I could handle. I wanted to sink into the earth. I wanted to scream.
I had not anticipated this, this fullness.
But his tears.
They were breaking me.
His face brightened with his inner light.
Our eyes locked.
His mouth moved silently, but I caught his voiceless words as he formed them. “I’m sorry.”
I opened my mouth to reply, and my words made no sound. “I forgive you.”
We shared a euphoric, blissful release in a mess of tears and sweat. Then Cystenian held me against himself, and that was the last I remembered.
Stupid fae.
FIVE
I woke up in my bedroom, tucked securely under my sheets. My lovely cream-colored, boring, boxy room greeted me. At least the sun shone through the standard, double-hung window.
Surely last night had been a dream, because how could I have woken up in my bed?
Or the fae must have known where I lived, because I assumed that’s how I got back here. I hadn’t just walked through the boulder and flown up that cliff, had I?
Naturally, the fae knew where I lived if they’d spelled me to run from my bed and jump over a cliff.
Good grief. There was no lock that could keep the fae away, I imagined.
I scoffed as I thought about last night. Either that was the best dream I had ever had, the most realistic for sure, or… or what?
What did I have to compare last night to?
A magical adventure. A spell cast by magical beings.
And a magical seduction—
